


Light me Up (Watch me Burn)

by thefrenchmistake



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Book 3: Mockingjay, Finnick Odair Lives, Finnick and Johanna friendship we stan, Healing, Implied/Referenced Torture, Not Canon Compliant, and actually surviving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:42:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28672428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefrenchmistake/pseuds/thefrenchmistake
Summary: They’ll talk about their states, afterwards. But they’ll never talk about the in-betweens.
Relationships: Annie Cresta & Johanna Mason, Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair, Johanna Mason & Finnick Odair, Johanna Mason & Peeta Mellark, Katniss Everdeen & Johanna Mason, Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	Light me Up (Watch me Burn)

**Author's Note:**

> I love those babies so much, please be aware of the warnings, and enjoy !

1.

They’ll talk about their states, afterwards. They’ll talk well enough about how they found them half-dead, how they were broken beyond their bodies, how their cells were right next to each other and how they must have bonded through pain. They’ll assume that the screams and the starvation and the display of each other’s torture brought them together.

But they’ll never talk about the in-betweens. About the whispered confessions and the words that allowed them, when nothing else did, to find some peace, some connection to the other.

They’ll never know about the suspended moments in time where they weren’t scared, except of forgetting.

Peeta isn’t exactly in the state of saying anything anymore.

So Johanna won’t tell them.

The first time they torture Peeta, Johanna greets her teeth so hard she cracks a few. Not that it matters.

The first time they come for her, Peeta punches the wall and screams himself hoarse until there’s blood on his side, too. They could’ve put them in joint cells to deprive them of the other’s face and the comfort that comes with it, but they put them in two cells facing each other.

After that first visit, she gets why; seeing, knowing, is worse than just hearing could ever be.

This first time, both Peeta and Johanna understand how deep into shit they are. Cause they’re torturing her for information she won’t give, and they’re playing with Peeta without the worry of using him as a bargaining chip, just as punishment. It’s quite clear that they’re fucked.

So, it starts with the torture, like it always does.

Some kind of sick games with Peeta she tries to tear her eyes away from, but never manages to.

The tides between water and electricity for her, the foam at her mouth, the blood in her nose, and Peeta’s screams that are almost worse than when he’s the one being tortured.

When they leave, there’s only pain; the aftershock.

Until some of them speaks up, which is the only thing awaited in these godforsaken cells, but she was never one to believe in God in the first place.

“Why do you think they’ve put us together ?” He rasps out, the words so dried out they grate inside her ears.

“Misery loves company, or whatever the fucking saying is,” Johanna snickers, but a coughing fit ruins her bravado, and she’s left with blood invading her mouth, body shaking although there’s no strength left in it.

She’s a survivor, has always been a survivor, bur right now she wouldn’t mind dying.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she faintly hears him say, and she’d laugh again because this boy is too pure, this boy is too innocent despite the mask he slipped on at the Games, at the Interviews. She could see right through him, and the evident fact left was that Peeta Mellark was one of the best persons she had the curtesy of knowing.

“You won’t be when they come back.”

Hearing Peeta’s screams wake something protective in her, something wild and dangerous for others as well as herself, far too destructive to allow her an exit without any guilt.

Guilt. That’s what comes after anger. Guilt because lover boy is getting tortured, and he shouldn’t. Because he has bruises and blood and swollen eyes, but he doesn’t deserve any of it.

She can’t exactly say the same.

Around the sixth time they come and practice the kinds of experiments neither of them could’ve even imagined, until they’re left broken beyond repair with blood dried out or fried or filling every pore of their bodies, Johanna can’t stand.

Peeta has fallen to his knees a long time ago.

On their leaving, Johanna lets her legs fail her, and she has to crawl to the glass doors to hear and see what’s left of Peeta.

More than she thought, after the screams.

But his lips are quivering and there’s a frail drizzle of blood coursing from his eye to his chin.

“I’m sorry, Lover boy,” she whispers, trying to make her voice as steely as the bars holding her down when they visit. “Looks like we’re not getting out any time soon.”

That’s the first time Peeta allows himself to cry, and if she hears, she doesn’t comment on it.

2.

Peeta remembers a lot of things, at first; that’s all he has now, memories, so he runs through them one by one in the hope of catching every detail there is, in the hope of not loosing himself.

His family first; there’s not much to say, except the scent of bread and the sound of the rain.

Gale, his back torn to shreds and his righteous anger. Primrose, her sweet smiles and her delicate words.

Then Katniss. There’s a lot there; too much, after a while. It becomes too painful to remember her lips on his, how she’d make her braid but let her hair down when she slept, how close she would hold him at night, after a nightmare, and how beautiful her rare smiles were, so proud and surprised at their spontaneity. 

How she left.

So he thinks about other people, and of course he thinks about Johanna. Wonders what kind of girl she was, before the Games turned her into a feral weapon, before the Capitol reaped everyone she loved from her. Wonders if she has always been this sharp or if when an axe cuts through blood and bone instead of wood, it changes the wielder.

And eventually, he wonders about the Games; about how Finnick ran to her, and she ran after him when the mockingjays came screaming nightmares and terrors. Wonders what other terrors they’ve faced together and saved each other from, if it resembles in any way what he and Katniss have.

Peeta wonders, because it’s the only way to control where his mind goes anymore (they figured out using electricity was both practical and efficient not long ago, and since then Johanna is getting electrocuted on a daily basis, and if he thought the previous screams were bad there is nothing comparable to the shocking induced ones).

After a while, wondering in his mind is not enough.

“Hey, Johanna ?”

She hums in acknowledgement, too tired to move from her place on the ground. There’s water, still, and her clothes smell like smoke, but there’s no other place

“How did you meet Finnick ?”

“That’s not a good story, pretty boy.”

“It’s a story nonetheless, and I need that right now.”

She wonders, for a second, who he’s doing this for. For him, as a distraction from pain, to satisfy his own curiosity, to remember the good things about their lives before ? For her, as a distraction from every goddamn thing here, to remind her of her friends, of the fact that she’s a fucking survivor ? For the Rebellion, struggling out there, to remind her of what they’re fighting for and who they’re protecting, to keep them in memory ?

Somehow, she knows it’s the first ones.

“Boy becomes victor, Girl becomes victor, Girl meets boy and they hit it off.”

“Bullshit.”

Johanna sighs, and it breaks itself in half right where her lung seems punctured. She has never given much power to words, has never been good with them either; Finnick Odair is the embodiment of what she’s worse at. Blending with the crowd, charming, seemingly unproblematic, fitting in all the right ways and distinguishing himself in all the wrong ones (blood on his hands and a dazzling smile). He would give Peeta a story, would give him a lifeline, so Johanna tries to.

“Finnick is… captivating,” she settles on. "Always was. I guess I got caught in it too.”

But when she met him, it wasn’t victor meets victor, it wasn’t even survivor meets survivor. It was two killers with blood on their hands and pain that settled between each bruise and broken bone in the arena, that couldn’t stand to look at themselves but found solace in looking at each other.

“They never talked about you two, before the Expiation Games,” he mutters like he’s trying to piece it together, like it’s a puzzle he doesn’t understand. She mentally wishes him good luck, cause she doesn’t either. “No one knew you were close.”

“Close ?” She snorts. “Fuck, Bread boy, you can’t be close in the Capitol.”

“Really ? Then what’s that between you two ?”

“You’re an asshole, you know that ?” Johanna snaps, but she answers all the same -it’s not like it can do any more harm now. “Finnick is…. He taught me the ropes, I guess you could say. Taught me what to do to survive, like never trusting anyone. It’s how it works. You can’t show any weakness, any attachment whatsoever, or you’re done. They’re always watching, prodding, looking for a crack and Finnick is too good at what he does to let them see. I never was.”

“Is that pride I’m hearing ?”

“Fuck off. You can always talk, Mr heart-eyes at Everdeen.”

“But Finnick and you…”

“We stuck together is all.”

“You said… You said there was no one left that you loved.”

She gulps, but it’s too dry, it makes too much noise in this little hellish cell that doesn’t offer any way out nor anything else than those words that hold too much power.

“Is that your way of asking if I love him ?”

“I guess.”

“Not like you love Katniss. He’s my family. He’s my family, and I couldn’t even protect Annie,” she whispers, angry tears burning her eyes. Annie, whose cell si a few steps down the hall. Annie, whose cries carry all the way to her ears. Johanna bangs her head against the plexiglass once, twice, thrice. She sighs deeper, closing her eyes to be in the dark and forget her guilt for a second.

“Within the Capitol,” she begins in a tight voice, so tight she wonders how it’s not breaking, “you haven’t lived what we lived. We were two incredibly young victors, we were fucking prey for the vultures, and they tore us apart. And Finnick... Well,” she chuckles darkly, nails biting into her wrist too hard, “when there was nothing else, there was Finnick.”

There was a rough fuck when she needed one, a slow, languid pace when he felt used and abused by some golden pimp, open mouthed kisses in the dark to try and soothe his tears, stories of the beach and a long-haired girl with a beautiful smile, confessions of bloody nightmares and years of secrets. There had been a lot of things, but she could sum it up in one word: Finnick.

“I’m glad you had him.”

“I’m glad Everdeen saved your ass in the Games.”

A breathless chuckle comes from his side. Johanna feels her chapped lips crack and bleed.

The victors didn’t die in the arena, and their whole thing is to escape death ; but being a victor in the Capitol is the slowest way to die. Peeta knows that. They all know that.

There’s a whole kind of talk when he reappears after his “interview”, dragged by three men into the room before her. When she realizes why they’re frustrated and why they’re yelling, Johanna begins cackling hysterically like a mad woman, and after a few seconds of stunned silence by the guards, Peeta starts laughing, too.

It’s too broken and ragged to be a laugh, and they’re crazy out of their minds, but it’s pure anger fueling their energy, when the guards drop the act and start lashing out, and every single angry blow makes her cackle harder.

Once they’re done, once Peeta is brought to his knees and she can’t even sit up, they leave.

And once they do that, Johanna smiles at the ceiling and whistles through bloody teeth.

“You did good, Peeta.”

There’s only dead silence, and then :

“That’s the first time you’ve called me by my actual name.”

Despite the frail voice, Johanna smiles.

“Don’t get used to it.”

It takes a while for him to regain consciousness once he’s passed out, but when he does he can’t seem to shut up, like he wants to hold on to the only thing he has left. He won’t shut up, but his brain is in scrambles and it scares Johanna more than she cares to admit. He tells her the revolution can win, then the revolution is terrorism; he tells her Snow has been merciful, then Snow can go fuck himself; he tells her Katniss is a terrorist and a liar and he tells her she is the best person he has ever known and the only one that can stop this madness. He tells her a lot of things; few of them make sense. Johanna listens.

“You’re the best person I know,” she eventually chimes in. “Not Everdeen.”

“She just wanted to do what was right. We all did.”

“It doesn’t matter in the Capitol,” Johanna says, head hung low between her arms. It’s heavy, heavier than her eyesocktets but not in the way that draws her to sleep, no. In the way that makes her feel her mouth filled with cotton, her ears stuffed to the brain.

“What does ?”

It takes a minute for her to remember -remember-remember the conversation. Peeta waits. She waits. They always do; that’s all they can ever do.

“A good story.”

He doesn’t answer, and she knows why.

In her sleep-fogged mind, Johanna wonders where she stands in this story, if she even wants to be there. Her place seems to be woven between the lines, carefully hidden in others’ shadows. Maybe it should bother her, that after what she did in the Games she won’t be remembered, or will be hated, or whatever the fuck happens next, but it doesn’t. For some reason, she’s content with what she’s done.

Doesn’t mean she wants to die now though. No, she wants to see Annie again, wants to see her reunite with Finnick and his stupid hero complex, wants to know if Beetee is alive, wants to see this dumb Everdeen figure out she’s in love with Bread Boy. She wants to see Peeta without bloodshot eyes, without broken bones and a broken mind.

Maybe for the first time in her life, Johanna realizes she wants a lot of things.

3.

When they leave, dragged by the Rebellion, there’s no relief. There’s only pain; the aftershock.

First time she wakes up, she’s tied to a bed. The cool metal burns with absent electricity, all the way to her bones. Johanna trashes and screams herself hoarse, so much they have to sedate her.

Second time, her eyes open to the Mockingjay in all her screwed up splendor sitting on the uncomfortable chair beside her bed. There is a neck brace choking her, her own eyes are bloodshot, and Johanna thinks _God, we’re all the same_.

“What an honor,” she croaks out.

Her eyes snap up to meet her face.

“I’m sorry,” Katniss says like it scratches her throat, and Johanna wants to laugh in her face. It must show, because the Girl on Fire leans forward, hands clutched tightly where they lay on her knees.

“I am.”

“I don’t doubt that.”

Holy fuck, her voice is hoarse. She gulps what’s left of saliva in her mouth but her throat and mouth stay dry as sand.

“Doesn’t change a thing.”

“I know what you did for me.”

Slowly, so that Johanna can register her every move, Katniss leans towards her until she can present a glass of water to her lips. Johanna drinks. For a second, she’s tempted to spit it on her like a damn llama, just for the kick of it. But Katniss is already sitting back in her chair, studying her carefully -albeit a bit unsettled as well.

“You saved my life.”

“Don’t get soft on me now.”

“Wouldn’t dare. You still cut my arm open.”

“With satisfaction, too.”

There is silence for a moment. Neither of them is good with talking, or playing nice, which is why it surprises her when Katniss speaks again.

“Finnick is with Annie.”

Relief washes over her. She doesn’t let it show.

“They wanted to see you.”

“If they weren’t authorized, why are you ?”

“Mockingjay privilege, I guess.”

“And why are you here, exactly ?”

“I wanted to apologize.”

“You’ve done that.”

“To make sure you weren’t dead.”

“Not quite.”

“And to ask you what they did.”

That gets her mouth shut. That gets her eyes desperately blinking the memories away. Her brain scrambles for a silver-lining, an excuse, a reason to ignore the question.

“Didn’t the extraction team tell you ?”

“Assume they don’t tell me anything.”

“Lucky you.”

She wets her lips, but they remain dry. She clears her throat, to no avail.

Pain is a big part of her now, seems like it’s all she is, so she talks anyway.

“Don’t really know. Basic torture for me, more… creative for Peeta.”

“And Annie ?”

“She wasn’t the same as us. Peeta was turned against you, and I had information. Annie was none of those, she was just leverage. Besides, they couldn’t have done worse than her mind did to itself.”

Quiet. Then, barely above a whisper :

“Was it bad ?”

“All alone in the dark with our screams, all day long, as sole company ?” Johanna gulps, avoiding her eyes. “Yeah. It sent her back. Hell, it sent all of us back.”

She remains silent for a while, so long Johanna wonders if she’ll talk again. After all, Everdeen is quite similar to her in a way : not a girl of many words. Not gifted with them, either.

“Finnick went out of his mind, leaving you there. He was looking for you right after he lost Peeta, and he thought he failed you cause you were a team.”

Finnick and his damn team dream, it makes her want to punch a wall and cry. She blinks at Katniss.

“Why are you telling me this ?”

“Just thought you should know. He wasn’t just worried about Annie. And I wasn’t just worried about Peeta.”

The need to say something ridiculous eats at her, to make the situation uncomfortable for Katniss, but nothing comes to mind. Katniss nods like she has accomplished some grand mission or some shit.

When she stands, her gaze follows the line of Johanna’s gaunt body and the remaining marks on her wrists, arms, collarbone.

“In the arena, you said there was no one left that you love. But there are still people who care about you. Don’t let the Capitol win.” Katniss draws the curtains and leaves Johanna alone again. 

That’s a fucking joke. Tributes, dead, victors; none of them ever win. Always the Capitol.

She is getting fidgety and fed up by the time Finnick is allowed into the thing they call her room. To her grand surprise, he is accompanied by Annie, whom Johanna scans quickly in search of any visible wound. There are none. She knows it doesn’t mean anything.

“You look like shit,” he says, but it’s so strained that it breaks on the end.

Johanna would like to smack him, but all she does is raise her hands as much as she can.

“I look fabulous and you know it.”

Next thing she knows, Finnick is crying ugly tears by her side, his hand right next to hers. Usually, she’d never indulge in this, but she takes it. He looks like shit, too.

He’s so warm. She’s been so cold for so long, and he’s so fucking warm, and so is Annie’s gaze on her, and the smile on her face that’s breaking at the edges.

“What have they done to you ?” She hears him curse, and she turns her head to Annie so he won’t see her tears.

But he’s Finnick, he knows her, and so he does. For the same reason, he does not say anything about it.

Though she will deny it later, when he climbs into her bed, she only has the heart to struggle for a few seconds before letting her arms wrap around his familiar warmth, Annie holding her hand on the other side.

Johanna never used to dream about her games, so it’s a novelty for her when the nightmares start.

Most are about choking on crimson rain. Some are about not being able to move. Most of them, she wakes from with a jolt that feels like a bolt of lighting, and it feels like hours before she can stop shaking and the sensation of being electrocuted slowly starts disappearing.

Drugs are the only thing that feels like it’s not tearing her apart, and so she uses and abuses them, and doesn’t care for the consequences (sleep, sleep is the only currency she knows now, no more secrets to trade).

Johanna isn’t seen as a threat anymore, nor as an ally. She’s just a liability in the field and a fallen victor in the public’s mind. She is reduced to her trauma, reduced to the ribs that can be seen poking out of her skin, to the lack of hair on her head and the shock marks on her arms and legs.

So Johanna watches. Observes people. Listens. Finnick taught her well.

Annie gets lost in her head multiple times a day, eyes fixed on a point far away, and emerges from that painful trance only when Finnick gently lays a hand on her shoulder, on her back. Only then will she look up at him and smile like it’s the first time she sees the sun in a decade.

Finnick is another thing entirely. Johanna knows him too well, and she tries to keep herself from watching too closely because then she’ll all he seams ripping open, leaving him defenseless. What she can notice, though, is how different he looks now that he has shed the armor that was his façade for so long.

But he still puts on a good front for Annie, a front Johanna enjoys bringing down brick by brick when he tries this bullshit with her.

“You don’t have to protect me,” she snaps at him once.

His face crumbles, and he buries it in his hands. Though the display of his pain is almost unbearable, Johanna is glad it is visible, that his attitude matches how he’s feeling. They have had enough of pretense.

“I don’t know how to stop.”

There’s no solution for that. There’s no easy answer. Even if they beat the Capitol, even if they have a second shot at a somewhat normal life, they’ll never not be broken, they’ll always carry their past on their backs. They’ll never be okay again.

Haymitch is Haymitch, albeit rendered a bit softer by all that is happening, and probably the lack of alcohol. He spends too much time keeping an eye on her, and she mostly pretends to ignore him. When she doesn’t, she snaps.

Peeta remains painfully absent from view. But his absence takes another shape : the pull of skin on Katniss’ cheeks, her decreasing energy, the despair in her eyes that get more and more lost towards a place she cannot see.

Katniss Everdeen has a place, a status, Johanna never envied, even less now. Everyone looks up to her, the symbol of hope, the girl who survived, who loved, who fought with everything she had. They don’t know it’s not really about them, never was. It’s about the blonde girl, so sweet Johanna can’t believe they’re related, who talks to patients softly, respectfully, gives them back a piece of the humanity they think they’ve lost. It’s about the woman who cleans the operation table everyday, who stitches people up, who works herself to the bone so that they might have a fighting chance. It is their faith that pushes Katniss to stand up before so many people and declare herself fit to fill such a role, even thought she knows she can’t.

She gives herself to the rebellion, but no one notices the Girl on Fire burning herself to the ground. Well, except Johanna. She always notices the people that are breaking, tearing themselves apart. No matter the curtsies and the smiles and the devious words, there’s an unmistakable shadow in the crease of their lips, a dark edge to their eyes.

That’s how she noticed Finnick. She knew of him before, as everyone did, but she noticed him the first time they met and he asked with far too much bravado :

“Sugar cube ?”

Unimpressed, she raised her eyebrow at him and continued to sip at her drink. Slowly but surely, her fourth margarita was emptying itself. Unbothered by her lack of response, Odair smiled brighter, stuck in his half-opened shirt that gave everyone a view of his torso. She could’ve cried right there, had she not been in public.

“You’re the new one, aren’t you ?”

“Yeah,” she snorted, finishing her drink and ordering another in the same move. “Fresh meat.”

A few sentences later, she left him with a finger raised in his face and an insult spit in his ear.

Thus began the infamous, oddest friendship.

Maybe that is why she accepts when Katniss hesitantly asks her to go and see Peeta.

Or maybe she has been building up strength for the past week to be able to do so.

In any case, she accepts, for her, for Peeta, and maybe just a bit for Katniss.

Peeta’s face hasn’t changed much from the last time she saw him, but a few days aways gives her enough hindsight to notice how utterly _damaged_ he looks.

Coming out alive doesn’t mean they survived this.

She doesn’t even remember the boy from the Games, and he must not remember the girl from the Games either, because he watches her with trusting eyes and rasps out :

“Johanna ?”

She snorts, but it burns her nose so bad it makes tears well up, and that’s just unacceptable.

“They told me you’re causing trouble.”

“Learned from the best.”

That’s half a good, half a bad sign, cause it means he remembers.

“They did a number on you in there, uh ?”

Instead of answering, Peeta frowns. It makes the skin of his forehead tighten, makes his eyes darker, and Johanna forces herself to keep looking at him. She won’t be treated like a victim, and she sure as hell will treat him with the same respect. Eventually, he looks right at her.

“You used to scream for hours.”

“You too.”

“I can’t remember how Katniss sings, but I remember every single intonation of your screams.”

Johanna closes her eyes.

At one point, Peeta’s shouts and whimpers became more familiar than Finnick’s teasing. She hates him a little bit for that.

But not really.

She doesn’t think she could hate him anymore.

“Do you think.... do you think she’ll hate how broken I am ?”

“We’re all fucking broken, Lover boy. Most of all her. If anything, she’ll turn it into some shit like you’re pieces of a puzzle that fit together.”

“I like that.”

Johanna does, too. She could never be anyone’s piece. She’s too sharp-edged, an axe in hand that cut at her every contour until there was only few left. But maybe she can fit with some people. Maybe some of Peeta’s broken contours can connect with hers, maybe Katniss’ weariness mirroring Johanna’s can spur them to find something more, maybe Annie’s kindness will soothe the aches of her heart, maybe Finnick’s shattering radiance will slip through the cracks in her mind and soul.

She asks Finnick how it was, while she was away -they always say _away_ , never put words on it, and she indulges in that weakness- and he takes a long time to answer. Then he tells her of the similarities with the Capitol, the interviews, the acting, the questioning. He tells her of the differences as well. Tells her of a hospital room, of nightmares and regrets alike tearing him apart, Katniss sitting beside him the only thing that felt real, sometimes.

“It was tearing me apart,” he admits, hands continuing to work on the intricate knot he’s making.

His perfect veneer has been scrapped away by worry and memories and every goddamn thing they’ve lived through. She has been locked in a cell, stuck in between water and lightning, but Finnick has been stuck in his own mind, and she knows it’s not a good place to be.

Doesn’t mean she’d like them to suddenly talk about their feelings and shit. She’ll indulge with Peeta, sometimes, because it’s the only thing they can hold onto, because he asks her to recollect his memories, because he doesn’t know where he is, where everything he was has gone and if she can bring some of the solace he brought her in those cages. 

“If I ask, will you tell me ?”

The answer is very clear, written so fucking deeply in her every pore that Johanna is shocked to hear his question.

Johanna doesn’t think she can deny Peeta anything at all, except his bringing her down in madness with him.

But Finnick ? To him, she’s used denying things. So she turns her head, facing away from him, and tries to ignore all the things unspoken between them and the way he doesn’t tear his eyes from her.

“Annie told me some. But she didn’t…”

“Annie doesn’t know.”

She’s grateful for that, if for nothing else. The poor girl doesn’t need another traumatic experience, being locked up fucked her up enough already.

“She knows. She heard.”

“For fuck’s sake, Finnick,” she snaps, turning around again, not caring for his wince. “Why does it matter ?”

“Because you won’t talk about it, and then it’ll fester, and you’re far too bent on self-destruction to try not to let it.” His eyes flash with something she catches as guilt, and she knows what’s coming before he even says it.

“Just like you did when Snow murdered your family.”

“Fuck you.”

“Johanna…”

“You’re my family,” she snaps to hide the emotion in it, but he seems to pick up on it all the same because he smiles.

“And you’re mine.”

4.

Snow is dead, and Johanna laughs for two minutes full when they announce it to the Districts in a broadcast.

Coin is dead too, but she doesn’t care too much about that. All she cares about is Katniss declaring freedom of the people and her retirement. All she cares about is sweet Prim she has come to respect that decides to go and become an official doctor, specialized in prosthetics. All she cares about is Peeta, trying to rebuild himself piece by piece while talking to Katniss more and more, about Finnick and Annie who just got married, about their baby, about the fact that she called godmother and that this child will be born in a free world and won’t ever have to fear a reaping.

She cares, she cares so much, and for the first time in her life she doesn’t need to hide it.

She still does, but by choice, not by fear of reprehension and punishment.

It’s not a coincidence, that they used water on her. They tried to take the only good thing that was left after the Games, after they killed her family. They tried to take Finnick away, if nothing else.

It didn’t work.

Sure, she can’t go swimming, the thought making her heart beat so quickly it feels like it’ll break her ribs and turn the shards on herself. She doesn’t know yet if rain affects her. She doesn’t think so.

But Finnick is not so easily shaken. She tried, in the Capitol, when her pride was too important, and her fear of getting close to someone who would stab her in the back. But as surely as everyone else, Finnick wormed his way into her heart like it was nothing. It took a while for her to realize she did the same to him, made him care without his knowledge, without his noticing until it was too late.

The sun feels like hope on her face, the smell of the ocean tastes like freedom.

Finnick brings his arm around her, and she doesn’t shrug it off despite her grumblings.

His fingers begin to play with her hair, twirling it. He confessed some time ago that he loved her hair, and she is glad it has grown back, now brushing her shoulders. Every inch is earned, and with each one she feels like she’s regaining her strength and her life back.

“I love you,” she mutters in his neck, like the heat of his skin will burn the words to ashes and render their weakness inconsequential. 

It doesn’t, of course, but she likes to believe it could.

“I love you,” he echoes in her ear.

It’s whispered, it’s a secret like those he collected in the Capitol, uttered in the simplest way so as not to display too much, so as to try and lighten the weight of the words even though they know they matter too much. It’s why they’re not declared, exclaimed, said too often. They matter, in a way only secrets can matter.

 _I love you_ , a whisper, a secret, and Finnick kisses her temple where new hair curls, and murmurs it again, and she’d be ok with this secret dying with them, but she’d also be ok with them living with it.

Living.

What an ancient dream. What a new possibility.


End file.
